


Unanswered Prayers

by Darby_Harper



Series: Mad Mad World [5]
Category: Rammstein
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 17:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darby_Harper/pseuds/Darby_Harper
Summary: An old boyfriend of Lilly's shows up the day before the end of the US leg of the tour, adding to the troubles that are already affecting the band and those around them. There are choices to be made, choices that could either mean the ending of everything the Changelings have come to know, or herald a new phase in their lives.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Any similarity between the fictional version of the person portrayed here and the actual person is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction. This is not an attempt to defame the character of said person on the basis of libel, as the work is FICTIONAL (and NOT an intently false statement created with the express purpose of misleading others about the actual character of said person). All rights reserved.**

_Once there was a little girl who wanted nothing more than to be like everyone else. She was somewhat plain, bright, and didn’t have many friends. Her adopted parents (her mother’s sister and brother-in-law) took care of her but they made it clear that she was a burden on them, thanks to her parents’ death in a car accident when she was four. They never told her she was loved, never praised her on any of her accomplishments, nothing. She learned quickly how to keep to herself, to never speak unless spoken to, and by watching the world around her, learned to navigate the slings and arrows of childhood and adolescence._

_Boys were a never-ending mystery to her. One moment they could be cruel and cutting, the next fawning and sweet. She had a couple boys as casual friends, boys who were as much an outsider as she was, but not boys she would look on as anything other than friends. She was having a hard enough time moving through her teen years with its hormonal storms, pressures at home and the load of schoolwork she had due to her adopted parents insisting she be in as many advanced classes as possible than to add to it by dating. They might not have loved her the way she should have been, but they realized how bright their adopted daughter was and took every chance they could to see that she was never bored, never stifled, never told she couldn’t do something because she was a girl._

_By the time she was grown and out of the house, she’d begun to notice that there more than a few covert glances shot her way by the young men in her college classes. One or two were brave enough to ask her out, one even agreeable enough for her to lose her virginity to, but in the end they drifted apart, nothing more than one or two things in common enough to keep them together. Enforced celibacy was a bother and sometimes left her curled up in her tiny apartment, sweating and shaking from lust that no matter what she tried, wasn’t enough to settle her soul._

_She’d wished and prayed so hard that at least one of the men she met later in college and then in her first job would find her interesting enough to see her as a casual fling, more than just “one of the boys.” There was one man who fit most of the bill, one that she’d stayed with for a good part of a year but in the end, something drove her to break off the relationship despite his insistence that he loved her and that someday she’d change her mind and come back._

_So the prayers continued, none of them answered, or at least not where you would ever realize them. The little girl, now a fully-grown woman, resigned herself to being single the rest of her days and went about furthering her education, getting a well-paying, challenging but enjoyable job and doing quite well in her field of work. However, she stopped looking for friends and closed herself off, locked away her disappointment, jealousy at her colleague’s happy family lives and her anger that her wishes had never come true. She presented a calm, happy demeanor to the world; no one would know about the hurt she kept inside._

_But sometimes wishes and prayers take time to come true, and come true in the strangest way possible. They arrive after a time of great sorrow and pain, but when they do, the reward washes away all the darkness, sadness and grief that have come before._

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Being in love does funny things to you. Everything---at least for a time---is sunshine and roses, the one you love is the most wonderful person ever and all is right in the world.

 At the moment, I was trying to figure out how to extract myself from the heated argument I was having with my beloved Lilly and lock myself in a road case before I lost my temper with her and started yelling back. At least we were able to confine ourselves to using our “grown-up argument” voices, the ones where you clench your back teeth until they want to crack and hiss politely at one another. I wasn’t about to try and talk to her through our link, she probably would have read me my pedigree up one wall and down another and given me a migraine on top of that.

“Richard, you’re being unreasonable about this! I told you, once I’m settled in Berlin I’m going to go job hunting! I don’t want to spend an entire year unemployed, it’ll screw up my employment history to the point that nobody will want to hire me!” Lilly growled, shooting me a glance full of daggers in my direction from her seat on a table in my dressing room. Her bright blue eyes were full of fire, her mane of red hair coming loose from its braid and fairly crackling with anger.

Any other time I’d be half out of my pants and running over to pounce on her for a wild roll in the sheets (or in this case, a wild roll on the couch), but at the moment I was staying on my side of the room and trying to stay as still as possible. I valued my life and didn’t want to walk around for the rest of the day with an ice pack in my underwear. Lilly had lost her temper with Till one afternoon and by the time she was done verbally peeling the skin off of him, she nailed him in the balls with a well-placed kick that knocked the wind out of him and put him on the floor. Poor Till had been sore and bruised for several days and avoided her for a week, scared to death that he’d accidentally say or do something and end up a castrati. In fact, we _all_ walked on eggshells around her for a couple weeks after that.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t say anything about _not_ going job hunting, I just think you need to take some time to get used to living in a foreign country before you throw yourself into anything,” I said as gently as I could. “You said that you’ve never lived anywhere than in the US and I can tell you from experience that just knowing the language and some of the customs of where you’re going to be living isn’t enough. You don’t have to come out on the tour as our tour doctor. We’d love to have you along just to show you all the places you’ve wanted to see. Didn’t you say that you wanted to see Japan in the spring? And what about going to Australia on that dolphin watching tour that Ollie told us about?”

Lilly rolled her eyes and hissed, “I’ll have time for that after I’ve been working a year or so.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking and I made absolutely sure Lilly couldn’t hear it in my head, knowing if she did I’d be digging myself out of the wall. She didn’t look strong but she had one hell of a punch to begin with and now that we were Changelings, she could probably punch a raging bull completely out.

She’d been working with Ollie and Schneider lately on dealing with her temper; they were teaching her how to handle a quarterstaff and she’d broken more than a few heavy, thick dowels before she’d learned how to pull her blows. Ollie had collected a couple of broken fingers from being in the wrong place at the wrong time while sparring with her and Schneider was still nursing a bruise across his behind from the same mistake. On top of that, she had begun doing T’ai Chi not only as exercise but something else to help her manage her anger. Some mornings I’d wake up early enough to watch her moving gracefully through the forms, filling my eyes with her serene face, the way her muscles moved under her skin and her red hair, tied up in a braid, moving with her, almost as if it was alive and sentient.

The problem with my dear girl was she was, as I’d heard an American from the Southern part of the States say, as ‘independent as a duck on ice.’ She wouldn’t accept a helping hand until she’d admit that she did (and often grudgingly at that), she was uneasy with compliments and loving words, and insisted on holding up her own end of anything. Sex, who picked up the check when we went out to dinner, the whole nine yards. While the latter didn’t bother me a bit, the former did. I was the same way but not as obsessive about it as she was. It had taken me years to learn how to react to compliments without worrying that there would be a serious consequence to them and love...well, that’s a tale and a half all by itself.

My suggestion the night before that she put off doing more than getting settled in my house and learning her way about Berlin before looking for a job had been met with a mental fireball of red rage that had chased me out of our bed and out onto the balcony of our hotel room. She'd never been able to do that before; I’d stood in the chill air in nothing but my underwear for well over an hour, shivering as Lilly raged back and forth across the room, slowly becoming soaked to the skin from the icy rain and sleet that had been coming down all evening. If I’d had been thinking I’d probably been better off taking shelter in the bathroom until Lilly calmed down but that much violent, crazy rage all of a sudden had scared me into running for the closest door, which unfortunately was the sliding door out onto the balcony. She’d woken Flake, Schneider and Till up, which was impressive as they’re the three heaviest sleepers I’ve ever met, her temper finally burning itself out when Till had hauled himself out of his bed and taken her for a long walk around the hotel. By the time they'd returned, I was in bed, thankfully.

The next morning was not fun. As if having her mad at me, still, I’d had to endure all three of them griping at me at breakfast this morning. No asking if _I_ was okay, none of that! Flake had been the meanest of them, saying, “If you don’t figure out how much hard-won pride and self-worth that woman has and soon, I won’t feel a bit sorry for you when she eviscerates you with a butter knife. Fuck me sideways Kruspe, I’ll _help_ her.”

“I didn’t do anything, Flake!” I’d yelled, flinging my napkin across the table at him. “All I said was that I thought she needed some time to get used to living in Germany before anything else! And that I’d like her out with us so I could show her all the places she’s wanted to see but never got the chance to on her own! She doesn’t have to tag along or anything like that, I’d just like to...”

“And _I’m_ telling _you_ to back off a little before she fries your brain, stupid! You’d better be thankful that all you got out of last night was freezing your toes off and a scolding. That you’re not lying on a stretcher while we’re trying to explain to an emergency room doctor why you’re having uncontrollable seizures and aren’t an epileptic or on drugs. Haven’t you noticed that Lilly’s getting stronger when it comes to her empathic skills? You weren’t there the afternoon my tech was having an argument with a girl from Catering and Lilly gave him a splitting headache!” Flake growled back. “I saw her do it too. She was really upset afterwards, and if Ollie hadn't been there to help me get her under control, I don't want to think what she could have done! It made her physically sick. Richard, it was the scariest thing I’ve seen in awhile. Another second of pressing on his brain and she’d have killed him.”

At that little bombshell, I sat back in my seat, feeling all my color draining into my feet and a cold wave of fright wrapping around me. I’d had hints that Lilly was getting stronger empathically but not that strong. The thought that my sweetheart was growing more powerful and perhaps losing control of her talent made me close my eyes against the wave of nausea that hit me like a board to the back of my head. I felt Flake press his fingertips against my wrist; the nausea faded into nothing but I was still freezing.

_**::It’s okay Reesh, deep breaths::**_ he said gently. _**::Lilly wouldn’t hurt any of us for the world, especially you. Let one of us talk to her, okay? Just ease up on her for awhile::**_

_**::I’ll try::**_ I said, opening my eyes and fumbling around till I grabbed up the cup of green tea with ginger that Schneider had been drinking earlier. I drained the last of it, my teeth rattling against the porcelain cup, forcing my hands to not tremble. Not because I was trying to be all manly and such, but because I’d seen a small gaggle of fans out of the corner of my eye heading across the hotel lobby and in the direction of the restaurant. With a deep sigh, I turned to Flake and said, “Put on your prettiest smile, my dear Doktor. Fangirls at twelve o’clock.”

But of course I was an idiot and forgot everything Flake had told me at breakfast. While I was sorting through the mess of things I’d accumulated in my road case over the span of the American leg of our tour, I’d offhandedly made a comment about how I’d miss being the idiot who thought Lilly’s smaller road case was theirs and ending up with a handful of bandages, not underwear. I’d felt her intake of breath but said nothing else, letting the moment pass without any comment. A few moments later, she’d begun telling me about the number of small clinics and hospitals that had answered her e-mails about available jobs and I’d said, “Lilly, please take some time off! You don’t have to go back to work just yet, do you?”

And off she went, growling in anger at me that I was being unreasonable, that she’d have a huge gap in her work history that wouldn’t look too good to a possible employer, and so on. It was getting more and more difficult for me to hold my tongue, and at the very moment I was going to open my mouth (and probably end up mentally singed and/or kicked out of our bed for a week), one of the local runners tapped gently on the door and said, “Uh, excuse me? I’m looking for a Lilly Bailey?”

Lilly all but flung herself off of the table, saying, “That’s me. I’m not expecting anyone or a delivery. What is it?”

“There’s a guy named Alan Drover in the main office asking about you. He said you went to college together and you’d remember him,” the clearly nervous young man stammered. I didn’t know how much of our arguing had been overheard, but he must’ve heard something because he looked like if Lilly sneezed, he’d piss his pants out of fear. Lilly’s back went stiff at the name, and she said in a voice flatter than floor tile, “Tell Mister Drover I’ll meet him out in the main hallway near the fountains in ten minutes, if you would, please.” The runner nodded sharply at us and fled, leaving the two of us staring at each other, the air vibrating with anger, frustration and in Lilly’s case, nervousness.

_**::This isn’t finished Kruspe. Not by a long shot::**_ she said icily. Turning her back, she strode out of my dressing room, closing the door so carefully that the latch’s clicking was as loud as a shout. She was furious, no doubt about that, and for a second I pitied the person who might become an innocent bystander if she didn’t calm down before meeting with them. My legs started shaking and thankfully I was able to plop my butt down onto the couch before they gave out. I sat staring at the wall, not seeing or hearing a thing until Schneider eased his lanky frame into the room, saying, “Is it safe to come in now or do I need to go put some Kevlar body armor on first? Or maybe asbestos underwear too?”

“Yeah, you’re safe to come in as long as she’s not hiding behind you waiting to ambush me for being an asshole again,” I sighed, flopping back into the couch’s soft pillows, covering my face with my hands and groaning. “I swear on everything holy, Schneider, I can’t go fifteen seconds without pissing someone off today. Have I done something to you that I don’t remember? ‘Cause if I did, I apologize.”

Schneider laughed softly as he sat down next to me. “Poor, put upon diva,” he teased, patting my arm. “No, I figured I’d better come see how much skin you had left. I heard most of the argument. That woman has a way with words, I'll admit.”

“I’m surprised I’m not burnt black around the edges,” I replied.

“And I thought I smelt barbecue!” Schneider teased, poking me in the ribs and snickering.

“Very, very, very funny asshole. Keep it up and I’ll have Till put you in the stewpot instead of Flake tonight,” I grumbled. “Christoph, is what I’m asking so hard for Lilly to understand? I’ve lived in a foreign country, I know how turned around and confused I was even if I did speak English well and sorta-kinda knew my way around New York City. Even with me being a workaholic, I made time to get used to being in a new city, all that shit. Lilly wants to hit the ground running once we’re home and I don’t think she’ll do well at all.”

Schneider sat quietly for a moment, nibbling on a hangnail, greeny-blue eyes hooded. He sighed, deeply, and said, “I’m afraid she’s going to fail, too. And I don’t like it. She’s way too nice of a person to have all that she’s planned for fall flat on its face and I don’t think she could handle failing right now.”

“Flake’s told me her empathy’s getting stronger and she’s having trouble keeping it under control,” I said, finding my own hangnail to gnaw on. “I can tell she’s not doing so hot. I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut but it’s getting to the point that I need to let her know I see it. The problem is I don’t know how to help her. God knows we’re floundering in the dark enough with our own talents. If she loses her grip, it's not just us that's going to suffer.”

“I think her working out with Ollie and me helps with her temper,” Schneider said. “She’s got a lot of stored up anger inside. Anyone else would be heading for a doctor for drugs to keep their temper in check or at the very least go into therapy. She’s told me about her childhood; I don’t blame her at all for being angry. Drop that on top of what happened to her early this year, you’ve got a ticking time bomb.”

If anyone had a childhood close to being as bad as mine was, Lilly’s was in the running. At least her parents hadn’t beaten the shit out of her for perceived misbehavior, or treated her badly because they weren’t living up to some impossible standard they’d set. I’d sworn long ago that I’d never treat any of my children the way I had been, the way Schneider, Paul and Till had been. Flake and Ollie had been lucky; I’d envied them (especially Ollie). It had taken me almost all of my adult life to come to terms with the bleakness that had been my childhood and I still had days where the hurt could be as fresh and real as it had the first time. It had driven me to do some stupid things, take risks with my life and health that should have killed me, but I’d been lucky.

Schneider broke into my thoughts by bumping my shoulder with his. “By the way, where was Lilly off to? I saw one of the local runners heading up the hallway like he’d been kicked and her right behind him.”

“Supposedly, some guy she went to school with is up in the office and wanted to see her,” I said. “Other than that, I know nothing. Hope she cools down before meeting up with him or we’re going to get sued for someone getting set on fire. Again. And Till will be jealous that he didn't get to do it.”

Schneider gave me this look, wide eyed and stunned, then started laughing till he was in tears. After a second I joined him, most of the day’s irritation washing away at last.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Never braid hair when you’re angry. Especially your own hair.

The painful yank I gave my hair as I jerked it back into a braid pulled me out of my snit fit and back to reality. I finished the braiding job a bit more carefully and tying the braid off, flung it over my shoulder and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were hard, bright blue with pupils blown in frustration and my cheeks were pink, but at least I’d managed to corral my hair into something professional looking. With a strangled sigh, I leaned into the cool, concrete wall and shook my head.

“Men. Can’t live with them and can’t sell them on eBay for a decent fee,” I grumbled.

Richard was lucky that the runner had interrupted us, one more moment of him insisting that I needed time to get used to a whole new country and I’d have mentally splattered him all over the dressing room. Damn it, I had to stay busy, I had to run my ass into the ground as much as I could because if I didn’t, I’d be the one going splat all over the place. Even though on the outside it probably looked like I was just fine, I knew that my empathic talents were growing stronger as well as harder to control. And it hadn't been all of a sudden, it seemed that my bad temper and loss of control had been developing over several weeks.

The moment I realized how badly out of control I was getting was when the weedy little guy named Jason who was Flake’s temporary keyboard tech started arguing with one of the Catering staff over her bumping into him while he was running some kind of diagnostic on the main computer that ran Flake’s keyboards. The young lady had been carrying two pitchers full of ice water, intent on where she was going and not spilling them, he’d been wandering about with his laptop open and up in his arms, not looking where he was going when they’d collided. I had no idea how she’d managed to dance out of his way and not spill the pitchers but she had, but Jason had tripped over a loose electric cord and almost wiped out on the slick floor. He’d saved his laptop from crashing to the ground but had barked his shins on a piece of lighting truss.

“You stupid fucking cow, watch where the hell where you’re going!” he’d yelled, snapping his laptop shut and carefully putting it on the floor underneath the stage. “If you’d made me drop that laptop or spilled water on it, that would have been several thousand dollars out of your paycheck! Not like you could afford it.”

My head shot up when I’d heard the yelling begin. Before I could stop myself, the memories of being bullied and not having someone to step in and stop it coming back in a rush, I reached out and “pressed' against Jason's brain to give the arrogant little fuck the migrane to end all migranes. He broke off in the middle of his yelling, face turning pale as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked around the arena as if he was trying to figure out what was going on; I pressed a bit harder and saw the veins in his neck begin to rise out of his skin. I could smell fear-sweat begin to break out on his skin, could hear his heart begin to pound, feel the blood racing throug his veins as I put more and more pressure on his brain. I could see a tiny trickle of blood begin to drip from his nose and I thought, _Good, you son of a bitch,_ I thought to myself. _I hope you hurt as much as you’ve hurt her._

_**::LILLY! Stop that!::** _

The contact I had with Jason snapped as if it had been an elastic band breaking. An elastic band that was not only on fire but was made out of acetone. The pain crashed back into me, making me immediately sick and a headache blossom in the backs of my eyes. With a hiss, I spun around and saw Flake standing not three feet behind me, a horrified look on his face.

_**::What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Flake?::**_ I snapped. _**::That...he deserved a headache after yelling at that poor girl!::**_

_**::You were about thirty seconds from making him blow an aneurism! Yeah, he’s an asshole and he shouldn’t have yelled at that woman but you don’t kill someone over that! Better thank all of your lucky stars that Ollie and I were here to stop you::** _

_**::What? Stop me? All I was going to do was give Jason a taste of his own medicine!::** _

_**::No, Lilly, you were out of line. You're a better person than this::**_ Ollie said, his sweet, lovely voice hard as stone. _**::You were too much for Flake to keep under control, if I hadn’t been here to clamp down on you too, there’d be one dead body to explain away. Or more, if we totally lost control of you. You'd have killed everything living within miles of this place::**_

The reality of what I’d come so close to doing hammered home with a ‘bang’ that I was surprised wasn’t audible. I managed to push by everyone and make it to the bathroom in the green room as it was closest before I threw up. It made my head hurt even more than it already was, which made the nausea worse. By the time Ollie and Flake reached me, I was dry heaving and in more pain than I’d ever felt. I don’t know which of them got me to sit back against the wall and drink some water but when I could make sense of things again, the three of us were sitting on the floor and Ollie was handing me an ice pack.

“Put that on your head and I’ll dim the lights,” he said, standing up and bringing the lights down to a level that didn’t dazzle my eyes. “Is that better?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I replied through a sore, tight throat. I let the ice pack work on my headache before I spoke again. “What the hell did I just do?”

Flake sighed and handed me a bottle of electroylte drink, glaring at me when I made a face at the flavor of the stuff. “Drink that and don't argue. You weren’t able to affect a normal person before, were you?”

“No. At least I don’t think so.”

“And correct me if I’m wrong but you and Richard have been arguing lately,” Flake mused, sitting down next to me. Ollie followed suit, watching me the same way a cat watches a mouse hole.

“Off and on, yeah. He’s being such a...whiner about what I want to do when we get to Germany. I’ve tried to be reasonable but he will not let up, Flake!” I said with no little heat. “I’m a grown woman, I know what I’m doing!”

“Lilly, please listen to me for a moment,” Ollie insisted. “I’m in no way saying you don’t know what you’re doing, so don’t take it that way. But...Germany is a whole different world than the States. It’s not just learning your way around Berlin, it’s not just learning how to speak German like a native. You’ve never been thousands of miles away from what you’ve called home for years, away from your support system, however small it might be. You’re cutting ties with everything and everyone to start over in a new country with the minute chance that you and Richard might split up, you might not find what you’re looking for. You need time to get on your feet. Remember what I said, that you’d had your head in academia for so long you needed to come up for air and see what the world was like outside? That’s not changed one bit. You’re coming apart at the seams, sweetheart, and I’m scared that all six of us won’t be able to keep you from hurting yourself much anyone else.”

I wanted to argue with Ollie and Flake but I didn’t have the energy to do so. Instead, I laid the ice pack back on my eyes while leaning my head on the wall behind me. “I’ll be all right in a bit. You two can do back to what you were doing, I don’t plan on trying to make someone else’s head explode.”

“Are you sure?” Ollie asked. “Because we weren’t doing anything important.”

“No, I’ll be okay. I think I need to sit here by myself for awhile and think about what I almost did,” murmured. “Besides, I think if I get up, I'll start throwing up again. I'll be okay and if I need anything, I'll yell. And...I'm sorry.”

The boys left me after reassuring themselves I wasn’t going to do anything stupid for a couple of hours. I groaned and stretched out on the floor, aching all over. The headache was subsiding, if slowly, and the cool concrete floor felt heavenly. I would have laid there till I fell asleep had I not remembered I hadn’t made sure my e-kit was stocked for that night’s show. I pulled myself up slowly, staggering a little from the residual dizziness, and made my way back to my little spot in the green room where I kept what few things I needed for the day. I wasn’t going to forget that little stunt any time soon.

Turning away from the mirror with a sigh, I made sure I didn’t have any stains or tears in the grey t-shirt and jeans I had on, straightened my shoulders and made my way to the front of the concert hall. As I walked up the main corridor, I dug through my memory trying to come up with a face to go with the name of my visitor and came up with a fuzzy picture of a gawky boy with frizzy blonde hair, grey eyes hidden behind round-lensed glasses and a kind smile. I stopped at the double doors and peered through the windows, seeing a few people milling around the fountain, most in jeans and t-shirts, and one man in a well-tailored grey suit. His hair was cropped close to his head and was almost pure white, and a pair of sunglasses were perched on the top of his head. I took a breath, opened the doors and walked over to him, saying, “Are you Alan Drover?”

The smartly-dressed man turned to look at me and I instantly remembered him. He’d been one of the few guys in college that I’d dated, albeit briefly. He’d grown into his height and was no longer awkward but sleek and streamlined, like a greyhound. He no longer gave off the air of a guy who wasn’t sure of his place in the world; now he looked confident and poised. His eyes met mine and he said in a voice full of wonder, “Lilly? Lilly Bailey? It’s so good to see you! How are you?”

Making sure all of my shields were pulled in close and strong, I crossed the last few feet between us, holding out my hand. “Alan, how in the world did you track me down? I’m doing well, when was the last time we saw one another?”

Alan shook my hand but didn’t lean in for a kiss which was a relief. Instead, he pointed to a pair of couches near the water fountain but not so close that the spray would land on us. “I’ve got about 20 minutes before I have to be in a meeting, can you spare me the time?”

“Sure,” I replied, making myself comfortable and looking my old classmate/boyfriend over. Once we were seated, Alan said, “My engineering company has a meeting in one of the conference rooms here and since I arrived early, I was sitting outside watching whatever band’s road crew loading in the equipment and thought I saw someone who looked like you. I convinced one of the merchandise sellers to let me look over the tour program and there you were. Are you really working for Rammstein as their tour doctor?”

I laughed at Alan’s incredulous face and barrage of questions. “One thing at a time dude, one thing at a time! Yes, I’m their tour doctor, but do be quiet, there’s always a fan or two around and I don’t want to deal with them at the moment. I’ve been a fan since college, I just never made a big deal out of it.”

“That is so cool! When did you become a doctor? The last time we talked you were going to get your Master’s degree in nursing,” Alan said. I smiled and said “I’m not a doctor but I do have my Master’s. The band’s management was okay with it and it’s a big change from the laboratory or working in a hospital or clinic. One of the band members is a friend of a friend, that’s how I got the gig. They’re quite nice people to work for.”

“I wouldn’t believe it if you didn’t say so,” Alan replied with a grin. “That lead singer scares the shit out of me. Anyone who plays with fire like he does, I’m not gonna argue with!”

“Till’s a big teddy bear once he gets to know you,” I said. “He’s so shy offstage, he literally can disappear into the woodwork and you’d never know it.”

Alan shook his head. “I’m glad you’re doing well. You look well, if I may say so.”

“You look well too,” I replied. “So, what’s this about an engineering company? If I know you, you’re the CEO.”

“Not quite that yet,” Alan replied, digging in the breast pocket of his suit jacket and producing a business card. I took it, raising my eyebrows as I did. “Lead engineer? That’s awesome. What does your company do?”

“We’re mainly structural and civil engineers but we’re branching into environmental engineering. The fellow who owns the business was one of my professors and when he retired from teaching, he asked me if I’d be interested in coming to work for him. I was kind of nervous signing on with a new company but we’ve done quite well for ourselves. Brian has one hell of a head for business and seeing where trends are going.”

As we talked, I could sense Alan’s interest in me; at one point when I met his eyes, I could see that there was something still there, an old flame that hadn’t quite gone out. I sighed inwardly, partially pleased by the attention and partially annoyed that he hadn’t shown that interest back when we were in college. We’d both been concentrating on our education but still, I’d been okay looking back then. Not as pretty as I was now, but I hadn’t been ugly either!

“So, if you’re not busy later, do you think we could meet up for a drink somewhere? This meeting will be over with by three o’clock, I believe. There’s a nice little Irish pub half a block from here,” Alan said, breaking into my reverie. I thought about the schedule posted earlier that morning and said, “Yeah, I won’t need to be on the clock till around five. I’ll meet you back here by three?”

“Absolutely! It’ll be nice to sit down and catch up on things. I’ll see you later!” Alan said as he stood up from his seat. He waved briefly at me as he went through one of the smaller double doors nearby; I sat for several moments, stunned at meeting up with an old boyfriend. My first thought was “I don't have time for this,” and my second was “All of my nicer clothes are at the hotel!” I sprang from my seat and headed backstage at a trot, barely stopping to show the security guard near the garage door that everyone who was supposed to be with the band had been going through.

I burst into Paul’s dressing room, thankful that he and the rest of the band were on stage going through sound check and yanked the first shirt I found on a hanger in his road case out from the rest of his gear. It was made from heavy, watered silk in a shade of dark green that was almost black with long sleeves and buttons made out of pewter, We were both the same size, more or less, and I left him a note on a piece of sticky paper, telling him I’d snitched his shirt and would have it back to him clean and pretty the next day.

My next stop was to dig through Richard’s stash of shirts; I came up with a camouflage green tank top that fit me like a glove. Throwing my stolen finery on a handy table near the shower, I hurried through a quick shower, did my eyebrows, put some mascara on and got dressed. I had no intention on being here when Richard came back; I left him a note pinned to the front of his stage jacket that I was out running some errands and would be back around five-thirty or so. I slipped one pair of the earrings Richard had given me, slid my old, comfortable black leather jacket on and was out the door again within an hour. Once outside, I checked my iPhone for directions to the pub and once correctly oriented, I set off down the street at a slow amble, the cool breeze blowing away the last bits of my headache.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Don’t get me wrong, I love Richard like a brother but on days like this when he’s being the bastard to end all bastards, I could gladly stick his head in the toilet and flush till he quits wiggling.  I don’t know what was up his ass that day, but he was driving all of us insane, slowly, and I could see that Till was getting there the quickest. Everything, from the weather on up was a cause for him to start bitching to high heaven, the most recent event his tech being a moment late for him to switch guitars between songs. Richard snapped at the poor guy, who shot me a stunned look, and snatched the guitar from his hands with not even a “thanks.” Which was very unlike Richard; on his worst days he was always, _always_ polite to the crew. Even when he was coked out of his head and snarling at the rest of us, he was nice to them. Sliding my guitar around to my back, I went over to Richard and said softly, “What in the name of God is going on with you Reesh? If my kids acted as bratty as you are right now I’d paddle their behinds and stick them in a corner.”  
  
“Oh fuck off, Paul!” Richard growled at me. “Nothing’s going on, I’m just not in the mood right now and people are pissing me off.”  
  
“Piss you off? What the...Reesh, you’ve been ripping holes in your tech ever since we got started this morning. You snapped at Ollie for no reason over breakfast, you’ve been picking at Till for stupid stuff, I don’t know what you said to Flake that he’s glaring daggers at your back, and you’ve got me and Schneider about ready to beat some sense into you!”  
  
Richard turned to me, indigo grey-blue eyes boring a hole in me. He backed me into the drum riser, hissing and looming over me like grim death, “Try it, pipsqueak, just lay one hand on me and I’ll wallop _you_ clear into your next birthday!”  
  
“Hey!” Schneider yelled, leaning over his drum kit. “Cut it out, Richard! One more word out of you and I’m coming down there and walloping you into your next birthday!”  
  
Oh, that did it. Pulling his guitar over his head, Richard shoved it under Flake’s keyboard rack for safekeeping and hauled himself up to Schneider’s level. He was halfway out from behind his drums when suddenly Ollie was behind him, holding him back, while Flake grabbed Richard around the waist and swung him off to the side. Schneider and Richard were screaming at the top of their lungs, going from German, to English and back again, filling the air with obscenities and threats. Ollie was having a hard time keeping Schneider from breaking free and Richard was trying to duck around Flake to get to him.  
  
“You fucking stuck up shit!” Richard yelled at Schneider. “Keep your goddam pointy fucking nose out of this! This is between me and Paul and nobody else!”  
  
“Fuck you, Kruspe! You’ve done nothing since lunchtime but pick, pick, pick on everyone and I’d tired of your mouth!” Schneider screamed back. “Ollie, please let me go so I can smack the shit out of that prissy princess!”  
  
“Oh no you don’t,” Ollie replied. “Now stop wiggling, Christoph, and stand still. You two will kill one another if I let you near him.”  
  
“Let ‘em go at it, maybe it’ll teach Richard a lesson!” I said, partially amused by the sight of Richard trying to get at Schneider and vice versa. I knew from long experience, however, that both of them could do a lot of damage to the other and considering what we were now, might just be strong enough to kill each other. Which we couldn’t have, but I was so tired of Richard being an asshole I probably wouldn’t have cared otherwise.  
  
The argument got louder and louder, our voices ringing off the walls and ceiling of the concert hall until all of the road crew was standing around staring at us. It was a second from reaching its peak as well as Richard and Schneider getting free of Ollie and Flake when Till stood up from his seat just offstage, took a long look at what was going on, and stuck his fingers in his mouth. I knew what was coming and shoved my fingers in my ears, not wanting to lose any more of my hearing than I already had. Till let loose a piercing whistle that could have shattered glass, causing everyone within earshot to stop what they were doing to plug their ears up. He did it again just to make sure he’d been heard, and shouted, “All of you, shut up! I don’t care who started it, I don’t care why, but that’s enough!”  
  
“But...!” Schneider began, only to back away and hide behind Ollie as Till turned around and stared him down. I caught a momentary look at Till’s eyes and they were a deep greeny-blue with nearly-insane rage simmering under the surface. He turned to Richard, who’d shrugged off Flake’s hands and was standing with his arms over his chest, glaring down at Till with every once of arrogance he could muster. Yeah, we were in for a donnybrook of epic proportions. I hurried to get past Till and on the other side of the stage, not wanting to be in his line of sight for all the money in the world.  
  
The air crackled with anger as Till walked up to stand in front of Richard, who had come down from his perch and was standing on the stage, chin up, arms folded back over his chest again and radiating his usual “fuck you sideways I’m fabulous” attitude that he put on when he was pissed off. Stopping scant inches from Richard, Till said very softly, “Either settle your ass down, monkey boy, or we’re going to have words.”  
  
Richard didn’t budge an inch. _**::Oh fuck you, Till! It’s perfectly okay for you to have days where we’re all running for cover because you got up on the wrong side of a groupie but one of us have a bad day? That cannot be! It’s just you who can have a shit day, not any of us!:: **_  
  
“Richard...” Ollie began, only to come to a stuttering halt when he saw Till’s face go red, then white. Flake ran down to try and push between him and Richard then stopped. I don’t know what was said between him and Till but he gulped, nodded, and inched around them until he could dash over to my side of the stage. The four of us stood frozen, waiting for someone to throw the first punch; we’d been through episodes like this before and while it was nothing new, nobody wanted to see Richard and Till pummeling the daylights out of each other.  
  
“Apologize, Richard,” I whispered, sweat ticking down my back and making my shirt damp. “Apologize now or you’re going to end up flat on your ass with a broken nose.”  
  
It was like watching two angry tigers facing each other down in an alleyway. Neither Till nor Richard moved; hell, they barely seemed to breathe! Something was going on between them, something they’d locked the rest of us out of. I tried to touch one of them through the link and got one hell of a static like “shock” along my nerves that told me to keep my nose out of things. I could tell by the way Schneider was shaking his head that he’d done the same and got zapped.   
  
_**::Something or someone’s got to give::**_ Flake said.  
  
 _ **::I’m not going to try and break them up!::** _ I yelped. _**::I like my nose unbroken, thank you very much!::**_  
  
A blur of movement to my right pulled my attention away from my angry friends and I saw Ollie throw Schneider a length of broom handle. Moving silent as a cat, our drummer crept up behind Richard and without warning, smacked on the ass with the broom handle. Richard yelled, jumped a foot in the air and spun to meet his attacker. He saw Schneider behind him with the broom handle and flung himself at him, only to have Schneider catch him in the gut with the end of the handle. Richard folded over at the waist with a grunt of pain but stayed on his feet. I knew there was no way on this Earth he’d be able to get in range of Schneider to lay a hand on him. Schneider knew this and kept Richard moving, kept swiping the broom handle along the floor to try and knock him off his feet, went for his head a couple of times and every chance he got to swat Richard on the ass, he did. He chased Richard down off the stage and onto the main floor, never saying a word, just kept him from landing a punch. And it’s not like Richard didn’t try, he put in a good effort, I’ll give him that.  
  
By the time Schneider was starting to tire, Richard was stumbling, sweating and blowing like a horse that’s been raced half off its feet. We were all in excellent shape thanks to the Changeling virus but Schneider had been working with the staff every day for at least an hour, plus his endurance from being a drummer for so long, so he had a lot more stamina than Richard did going into the fight. And Richard's strength was partially coming from being so angry, anger which when it burned out, left nothing to draw on.  
  
The end happened almost too quick to follow; Richard tripped right into the path of a very showy down sweep Schneider was in the middle of and was on his knees, spitting blood from a split lip. He hadn’t been hit hard enough to break teeth but it was enough to open his lower lip and leave a mark from the corner of his right eye clear to the chin. It was going to bruise vividly once it got started and no amount of accelerated healing was going to make it go away soon. He glared up at our drummer, who stood balanced on the balls of his feet, staff off to the side and one hand making a “come here” gesture.  
  
“Get up, you little _bitch_. I’ll give you one chance to try and hit me before I start breaking bones,” Schneider purred, voice icy cold and almost too soft to be heard. Richard stayed on his knees, holding his arm to his lip to let the sleeve of his shirt soak up the blood. “You need taken down about ten pegs and I’m just the man to do it.”  
  
“Shit!” Flake snapped and ran for the back staircase with Ollie and Till hot on his heels. I couldn’t move, I was frozen in place. I’d never heard Schneider’s voice so cold and cruel and it honestly scared me senseless. The look he was turning on Richard was every inch the “Frau Schneider” character from our “Mein Teil” video. Any other time it would have been hilarious because he used that face when someone said or did something stupid (like a reporter who asked him if we were Nazi sympathizers for the millionth time) but now, not so much.  
  
“Get. Up. Kruspe. Hell, who needs a stick to knock your sorry ass around,” Schneider said, throwing the broom handle to the side. “Get up, now.”  
  
Richard didn’t need another invitation, he came up from the floor like a shot and plowed into Schneider, who hit the ground with a “whuff!” and rolled to his feet. By this time Ollie, Flake and Till were running across the floor, yelling for them to break it up but they might as well have saved their breath. There was no separating the two combatants without anyone else getting hurt. I hadn’t seen either Schneider nor Richard fighting like this in a very long time and it was awful. I was debating whether or not I wanted to try to pull them apart or grab a bucket of water to throw over them like you do when cats or dogs are fighting and won’t break it up when my phone buzzed. Not taking my eyes off of the fight, I pulled it out of my pocket and said, “What!”  
  
 _“Paul, it’s Lilly! What the hell is going on over there? I just got a call from Emu saying that Richard and Schneider are attempting to beat each other into the ground!”_  
  
“Damn, woman, get your ass over here and now! Richard has a black eye and a split lip and if Schneider gets his wish, he’s gonna have more than that!” I yelled. Lilly broke the connection with a garbled word, leaving me standing in the middle of the stage hoping that someone, anyone, would be brave enough to bring the brawl between my two best friends to a halt, and soon.  
  
Thankfully, Till came to the rescue by reaching down the linkage and shoving them into unconsciousness. Richard, who was on his knees (again) slumped over and was still, Schneider took a couple of staggering steps, and slowly knelt, then toppled over to flop down on top of Richard. I ran to the edge of the stage, sat down and scooted forward until I could put one foot on the edge of the front firework truss. I hopped down onto it, then used it as a ladder to get me close enough to the ground that jumping off wouldn’t hurt my ankles, then ran over to where Flake and Ollie were kneeling next to our fallen band members. Till was hauling Emu to the side, speaking rapidly to him in an undertone, while the crew people who’d been watching the proceedings stood uncannily still, as if they were frozen in time. Ollie’s eyes were distant, the black pupils of his eyes almost covering their usual forest-green and gold, and I knew without being told that he’d grabbed the minds of everyone but a few and was holding them still so they couldn’t move.  
  
“Lilly’s on her way,” I said, going to Ollie’s side and touching his arm. He blinked, very slowly, and whispered, “I can’t hold this for too long, not this many people. Give me a hand?”  
  
Laying my fingertips on his broad shoulder, I lent Ollie all the strength I could muster. The sheer amount of strength he was using to keep over a hundred people in suspended animation as well as being unable to see or hear what was going on was impressive. He was burning through it as fast as I fed my strength to him and I knew we were going to need to do something, soon, or we’d be joining Richard and Schneider on the floor. My knees were beginning to tremble when Till dropped into the link, relieving me so I could stagger backwards and sit down on the floor, soaked with sweat and shaking. Too tired to see what he and Ollie were doing, I closed my eyes and flopped down on the floor, not giving a damn if anyone saw me or not.  
  
 _ **::Hang on Ollie, let me get a grip on these people and I’ll finish off what you’ve started::**_ Till said. I felt Ollie’s nod, then the sensation like I was falling off the top of a tall building. I sat up in time to see Ollie carefully sitting down on the floor at Till’s feet, just as sweaty and white-faced as I figured I was. The crowd, still eerily silent, broke apart and left the arena, shutting the doors behind them. Once the place was empty, Till sighed and said, “Paul, did you say Lilly was on her way?”  
  
“I’m right here,” she called, bursting from the side of the stage and hurtling over the barrier like it was only a few inches high and not the seven feet it really was. She was at my side first, running delicate fingers over my head and across my face, then went to do the same to Ollie. Till shook his head, saying, “I’m okay, you need to see to Richard and Schneider. They’re going to have awful headaches when they wake up, I think I overdid it when I knocked them out.”  
  
Lilly nodded and knelt next to Schneider, laying her fingers on his forehead. A breath or two went by and he was awake, pushing himself up on shaky arms to stare about him. “What the fuck? Till, what the hell did you do?”  
  
“It was either knock you out or watch you and Richard kill each other,” Till said, helping Schneider to his feet. Richard came around with a groan, rolling to his side and saying, “What did you hit us with, a piece of girder? ‘Cause that’s what it feels like.”  
  
“Sit still and let me finish looking you over,” Lilly said, getting Richard to roll over onto his back. She took in his split lip and blackened eye with a grunt, then went back to look Schneider over again. He hadn’t gotten bashed about as badly as he’d beaten Richard but his knuckles on both hands were split and bloody, he had two black eyes and was holding his right side gingerly. “Pull up your shirt and let me see,” Lilly said, examining the dark bruising that was beginning to spread across his rib cage. She clucked her tongue and said, “Bruised but not broken. Both of you. You’re gonna be sore as hell for a day or so, accelerated healing skills or not.”  
  
“Well, _fuck,_ ” Richard groaned, standing up slowly and making sure he was steady on his feet before finally standing up completely. “There’s no way we’re gonna be able to play tonight. I’m already stiffening up and I know Schneider can’t see out of one of his eyes, if not both. I can barely see out of mine.”  
  
“You sure I didn’t break your fingers, Reesh?” Schneider asked, walking gingerly over to our guitar player and gently lifting one of his hands. “I walloped your knuckles pretty hard if I remember.”  
  
“Yeah, they’re fine. It’s my ass that’s broken,” Richard replied, trying to smile and stopping with an “ouch” when he remembered his lower lip was split. “What in the hell were you hitting me with?”  
  
“A broom handle,” Schneider replied with a halfgrin. Richard returned it with raised eyebrows and a snort-laugh that made me stare at him like he was insane. “You two going to start going at it hammer and anvil or are you going to behave?” I said, not moving from my spot on the floor. “Because if you are I’m going to leave before the bloodshed starts again. That was fucking nuts, you two.”  
  
“Come on folks, let’s get the wounded backstage so I can take care of this mess in relative peace and quiet,” Lilly said, taking Schneider by one arm and Richard by his hand. Till and Flake had Ollie on his feet by this point; he came over to me and got me on my feet with a gentle tug. I slung my arm around his skinny waist, not wanting to fall down and do any more damage to myself, and we wobbled our way towards the backstage and the green room.  
  
Once Richard and Schneider’s cuts were cleaned out and bandaged, and all of us had some aspirin and sports drink in our systems, Lilly said, “I can’t leave you boys alone for five minutes. What in the world happened?”  
  
Richard, who couldn’t have looked more ashamed and sheepish than if he tried, scrubbed his face carefully as not to bump his black eye and muttered, “I started it. I shot my big mouth off to everyone because I’m an asshole. I got in Paul’s face, Schneider came to the rescue, and we went at it from there.”  
  
“I've noticed that we’ve all been on edge for about a month or so,” Till said, combing his fingers through his fringe and staring down at the floor. “It’s like having spiders walking on your skin but not touching.”  
  
Schneider went white at Till’s comment. “Not spiders. Don’t mention spiders, okay?”  
  
“Sorry. It’s like...well, like someone holding their hand over your arm to the point that you can feel their warmth but it makes your hair stand on end. Like that.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s how I’d describe it,” I said. “I’ve been able to ignore it somewhat but after a bit it breaks your concentration. I’ve been scratching at myself like a dog with fleas; I thought it might be an allergy to something.”  
  
Flake, who had been quiet the whole time we were getting patched up, said, “Someone’s making us itchy, on edge, on purpose. I can’t tell who, but it’s someone in the crew. I’ve tried to have an excuse for bumping into the people I suspect might be the person making us edgy but I haven’t had any luck.”  
  
“It can’t be!” Lilly exclaimed. “There can’t be anyone out there like us, I know there can’t be. Flake, are you sure?” He nodded, white-blonde hair swinging down into his face. With an irritated huff, Flake shoved the hair from his eyes and continued, “There’s a person out there who’s got our kind of talent and intentionally developed it, or has a touch of it and someone’s boosting them the way Paul’s able to do. Whoever it is did this intentionally and when I find out who it is, I’m going to hang them by their toes from the rafters and use them as a pinata.”  
  
I laughed softly, meeting Flake’s wink with one of my own. My friend didn’t show his temper normally and the thought of him swinging away at a faceless person hanging upside down from the arena ceiling was funny. Eventually everyone else broke and laughed, with Till saying, “I want to see this. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a brick before and I don’t think you’ve gotten any better, Flake!”  
  
“Oh, I think I’d surprise you,” Flake replied slyly. “Wait and see, Till, I’ve got more than a few tricks up my sleeve.”  
  
We managed to do the show that night despite Richard and Schneider looking like raccoons with their black eyes. Lilly solved the problem by dabbing concealer around the edges of their eyes to even the bruises out a little, then smudged black eyeliner around Richard’s non-bruised eye to make them match. I did the same to keep in the spirit of the moment, and after a bit of nudging and teasing, Till did as well, only not as much. Ollie kept to his usual white foundation with a swath of scarlet color and royal blue eyeliner, saying that he wanted to be different and Flake nearly had to climb up on top of the back line lights to keep me from painting him up like I was. The teasing, messing about and minor roughhousing settled our nerves nicely, and by the time we were ready for our pre-show tequila shots, the ill feelings that had been rampant all day were gone. Lilly gave each of us a careful hug, kissed Richard on the nose, and was gone, stealing away to her usual hidy hole near the stage with her ekit at her feet, ready to go.   
  
Towards the end of the show, I looked out over the sea of faces, remembering that we had one tour date left and after that it was home for a month before setting out to tour Europe and the rest of the world. Up until the past couple days, it had been one of the best tours I’d ever been on, almost trouble free and for the most part, fun. I hated for our run in the US to end on such a bad note and I thought to myself as Schneider counted us in for the next song that if I got my hands on the person who’d caused us to go momentarily mad, I’d do more than use them for target practice.


	5. Chapter 5

I walked into the Irish pub Alan had asked me to meet him at a few moments before three o’clock, remembering at the last second that I’d told him I’d meet him in the main lobby of the arena. Cursing to myself, I started back out the door only to see him standing behind me, a broad smile on his face. “I figured you’d forget. Don’t feel bad, I could tell you’ve got a lot on your mind and thought I’d pop down here first to see if you were here. Let’s get a table, I’m really wanting to hear what you’ve been up to.”

We were seated at a table near one of the windows that faced the street; the weak sunlight that was streaming down through the dark storm clouds was warm and welcome. The waiter came and took our drink orders, mine for a glass of iced tea with red raspberry juice and Alan’s for a large ginger ale. Once they’d arrived, I ordered an egg roll, fried mozzarella and fried onion appetizer plate with a salad, my stomach reminding me that I hadn’t eaten yet today. Alan did the same, only with a piece of chocolate silk pie instead of the salad.

“You and your sweet tooth,” I laughed, pouring the salad dressing over the mixed greens and stirring them up. “You should see the boys when they get going. They’re as bad as you are.”

Alan grinned, taking a forkful of the pulled pork over cheese fries part of the appetizer platter he’d ordered and waving it in my direction. “You should talk. If I remember, I got you a six-pack of Kinder eggs and didn’t get one speck of candy from it.”

“I was a starving student!”

“So was I. If I never see tuna fish casserole, Ramen noodles or that horrible pizza the college cafeteria used to serve ever again, I will be a happy man.”

“I’m surprised we didn’t have an outbreak of scurvy or food poisoning,” I replied. “However, by the time I graduated I knew how to cook well enough to keep me healthy and I didn’t need to rely on Ramen noodles for much of anything. I’m not that much for cooking now but every once in a while I get the urge to bake a nine layer chocolate chip cake with home-made icing.”

Alan laughed and said, “I don’t get as ambitious but I do know how to cook. Made my first wife really happy. So happy that she divorced me and married a four star chef that has two restaurants in Chicago!”

“Alan, that’s cruel! Are you remarried?” I asked.

“Dating off and on but nothing serious. I don’t have a lot of free time as it is and it would only be unfair to try to maintain a steady relationship with someone when I won’t be able to spend the time I should with them,” Alan said without a pause. “What about you? Anyone serious in your life?”

My hand crept up to touch my earrings; it took me a second to gather myself together and say, “Kind of. We had a nasty fight this morning so who knows?”

“Ouch. Sorry about that. I’ll change the subject. Tell me what else you’ve been doing?” Alan said, watching me like a hawk. I knew he was trying to play it cool but there was something more, something he wanted to ask but wasn’t ready to put it out for discussion. I managed to condense my work history down into the highlights with lots of amusing stories and only one moderately sad one to temper them out, making sure to not even hint that things had gone horribly pear shaped at Vis-Tek. I got around that by saying I’d quit when new management moved in and worked from home for some time before getting the call to be the band’s tour doctor.

The afternoon sped by so quickly, I barely noticed that it was coming onto five o’clock. Only the slow shift of casually dressed patrons to workers from the nearby businesses in their work to date clothes alerted me. The waiter had left the checks long before; I flagged down a passing waitress and asked her to run my credit card with the apology that I needed to get going and didn’t want to bother our waiter, who was all but running back and forth between tables, getting the pub ready for evening. Alan tried to talk me out of paying for both of us but I stabbed my fork at him and said, “ _Nein_! You bought me dinner enough times when we were dating!”

Alan held his hands up in surrender. “Then let me pay for dinner the next time you’re in town. These guys tour a lot and if you’re on their payroll, you’ll certainly come back through here soon.”

“I won’t be back this way for a very long time, if ever,” I said softly as I got up from the table. Alan looked up at me, puzzled; I slid my credit card back into the tiny wallet I kept all my essentials in to give me time to think what I wanted to say next.

I was right, I’d seen the hope in his eyes that we might start our old relationship over again; he regretted not making more out of our relationship when he’d had a chance. I waited until we were back on the street, standing under the huge awning that protected the front door of the pub and several feet to each side from the weather before I continued. “I’m leaving the States and moving to Germany in a couple months. Except for a few last minute things I need to deal with, I’m ready to go. I sold my house and what furniture was worth selling and the rest will go with the house. I sold my car last week to one of my neighbors; all of my clothes, books, personal stuff is on its way to Germany to the apartment I’m staying at for the time being. All I have with me are the essentials. Once those last few documents come in, I’m gone. For good.”

Alan’s face was a study in amusement heavily overlaid with sorrow. “What’s so bad that you’re leaving the States? The job market over there is pretty solid, you speak German better than any person I know and you’d probably be able to write your own ticket to whatever company you go with. But...leaving the States? When you’d only moved a couple of hundred miles from your parents’ house to go to college when we met?”

“You asked me if I was with someone, Alan,” I said. “I am. I’m dating Richard Kruspe and he’s asked me to move in with him when we get back to Berlin. Even if we break up, I’m not coming back. I can’t tell you why, it’s too painful and too personal.”

“Do you love him, Lilly?” Alan’s voice was so sad it broke my heart. He’d been wishing that I’d be single and now I’d dropped this bombshell on him.

“I do, Alan, I love him more than anyone I’ve ever been with. He was the person I used to wish to find and didn’t for so long. I gave up wishing because nothing happened, then one day it did. We’re still trying to work out things, trying to get used to being around each other almost 24/7 and it’s not always easy. But we’re both willing to give it a go.”

Alan looked down at the ground, up at me, a sad smile on his face. He held his hand out and said, “Well. Guess _my_ wishes still have to come true. I hope you and your Richard have a long, happy life together and if you’re back here, do look me up.”

“I will,” I replied, shaking his hand, then letting him give me a brief hug. As we were stepping apart, the sudden shrilling down my nerves that told me something was wrong with the boys set me to digging my phone out of my jeans pocket. Alan looked at me funny; I said, “I have a feeling I need to call the office. I’m sorry Alan, I really need to go...”

“That’s perfectly okay! It was good to see you, good luck and all that!” he said, waving goodbye to me and heading across the street to the nearby car park. I stepped to the side of the street, punched Emu’s cell phone number in and waited for the disaster to come crashing down. He answered the phone half yelling. _“Thank heaven I got you so quickly, Lilly. You need to get over here and fast, Richard and Schneider are trying to kill each other and they’re both banged up pretty good. They’re not listening to anything the rest of the band is saying; maybe they’ll listen to you.”_

“Shit,” I snapped, dropping the call with Emu and hitting the speed dial code to bring up Paul’s number. The call went through within seconds, and I heard Paul’s strained “ _What!_ ” even before his phone rang.

“Paul, it’s Lilly! What the hell is going on over there? I just got a call from Emu saying that Richard and Schneider are attempting to beat each other into the ground!”

_“Damn, woman, get your ass over here and now! Reesh has a black eye and a split lip at the moment and if Schneider gets his wish, he’s gonna have more than that!”_

I disconnected the call before Paul had a chance to say anything else, shoved my phone back into my pocket and sprinted up the street, hoping I would get into the arena in time and not find blood splattered everywhere, broken bones and worse. I hit the back door within a few moments of my leaving Alan and sprinted towards the green room, luckily getting by the lone security guard without being seen. As I emerged into the brightly lit main part of the arena, I saw Till and Flake standing over Richard, Schneider, Paul and Ollie. Schneider was stretched over Richard’s prone body like he was a pillow, Paul was lying on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes, and Ollie was sitting nearby, knees drawn up to his chest and resting his head on his folded arms.

What the hell did they do to each other _this_ time?

::::

It was close to one in the morning by the time we got back to the hotel. I’d thought we were going to travel through the night to get to the last show but thanks to there being two days off for everyone before the last show, we were staying overnight and flying to the last show late tomorrow afternoon. I was very glad for the rare opportunity to sleep as late as I wanted, especially after the events of the day. No one hung around the backstage area for long after the show; Ollie and Till were half-staggering with exhaustion, Paul and Flake were starting to look ragged around the edges while Schneider and Richard were nursing headaches on top of their injuries from their fight earlier. Ollie and Till’s ability to ‘blur’ the memories of whoever had seen the fight had worked well; I hadn’t heard one word about it. Even Emu had no clue, all he thought was that Richard and Schneider’s black eyes were makeup. Till had convinced him everyone was just fine and told him to head back to the hotel, we’d be behind him within moments.

Packing up my e-kit took only five minutes, I’d only restocked on what was the absolute necessary the past several shows so I wouldn’t have as much to deal with when the tour was over. I counted myself lucky that I hadn’t needed any of the heavy duty supplies, like the epinephrine pens for allergic reactions, resuscitation kit and adrenaline shots. The band had gone through at least ten gallons of burn gel which was par for the course and I’d doled out enough bandages of various sizes to circle the planet twice.

As I locked the box up and pushed it into its slot in my road case, I sat back on my heels and stared at it, not seeing anything. Did I want to give this up? Did I want to go back to working in a hospital, clinic or lab? Or did I want to spend most of a year going from city to city, sleeping either on a tour bus or in hotel rooms of various quality, trying to balance my personal and professional lives? Add to that dealing with not only my own developing psychic skills but trying to help the boys with theirs, was I strong enough to do it? With a sigh I closed up my road case, locked it, and shoved the keys back in my pocket.

“Lilly, we’re ready to go,” Flake said, crossing the green room, holding out a can of ginger ale to me. I took it with a nod of thanks and drank half of it before saying, “How are you doing?”

“The moment I hit my hotel room I’m gonna pass out and not wake up till I absolutely have to,” he replied, helping me into my leather jacket. “I’ve never been so tired in my life that I can remember.”

“I hear you,” I replied, snagging my backpack from the chair I’d placed it in while I was packing up my road case and slinging it over my shoulder. I followed Flake out to the hotel shuttle and snuggled up next to Till, who woke up from his doze long enough to smile at me sleepily and drape his arm over my shoulders. Richard was leaning on Schneider, both of them snoring quietly, while Ollie and Paul were looking at their something on their phones. Flake climbed up next to Paul, the security guard who’d been standing next to the van shut the door quietly and we were off.

Once we arrived at the hotel, it took Till and I several minutes to rouse our battered fighters; Richard snarled at me and slapped my hand away while Schneider hissed and weakly kicked out at Till. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled, reaching over to tweak Schneider’s nose and Richard’s earlobe. Both of them came wide awake within seconds, swearing mightily. “We’re here. Come on guys or you’re sleeping on the sidewalk,” I said, giving Richard’s arm a tug to get him on his feet. Schneider was muttering darkly at Till who’d done the same but by the time we reached the doors, was awake enough to apologize for his bratty behavior.

“Tell me all that again in the morning,” I said, poking Richard in the butt to make him move a bit quicker. I could sense some fans around the corner and didn’t want to run into them. “You could be telling me the meaning of life, the universe and everything and I wouldn’t remember it.”

“Forty two.”

“Uh?” I said, half turning to look at Schneider, who was smiling at me through his messy curls. “Forty two? What’s that?”

“It’s the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Forty two.”

“You, my dear, are weird,” I said, poking Schneider lightly in the stomach. He giggled softly as we walked into the elevator and said, “Yeah, but you all love me even though I’m weird.”

Nobody was up until late afternoon the following day. I’d woken up a couple of times in the early morning hours to run to the bathroom and take a couple of my ‘special’ pain pills against the nasty headache I was developing. I’d checked on the boys as well; everyone was deeply asleep and recovering from the chaos of the day before. Richard’s black eye was already beginning to fade but the bruises across his lower back and behind were still wicked-looking. I knew from experience how much being whacked with a quarter staff hurt when I got my knuckles walloped, I could only imagine how sore Richard was. He’d tried to sleep on his back but had ended up sleeping on his face due to the bruising which not only made it easier for him to sleep, it also meant he didn’t snore.

I finally woke up around two-ish to the sound of Richard’s whistling coming from the bathroom. He couldn’t whistle all that well and when he went off key, it made me wince. I sat up in bed, stiff from sleeping so late, and called for room service for some lunch. I was starving and didn’t feel like dragging myself down to the hotel’s restaurant. As I was hanging up the phone, Richard strolled out of the bathroom, stark naked, with droplets of water flying from his hair as he dried it off. When he saw that I was awake, he dropped the towel, spread his arms wide and purred, “Look what’s for lunch.”

“Room service will be here in a half hour, do you think you can wait till after we eat?” I said, trying not to giggle at my lover’s dismayed face. “I mean, do you want to be in the middle of things and have to stop because lunch is here?”

“Who says we have to stop?”

“Richard! You...okay...I see your point...”

“And what a nice point it is, eh?”

“Dear God, that’s awful. Shut up and kiss me, Kruspe.”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

And just like that, the US leg of the tour was over. We’d played two encores instead of our usual one, used every bit of pyro in stock---basically blew up the stage completely. Hell, we weren’t going to need it again, right? It was easier to have it rebuilt overseas than haul the monstrosity several thousand miles and over a couple oceans.

Instead of the usual after party, Lilly and a couple people from the management company had planned two “final show of the tour” parties; one for the road crew and support staff, and one for us, our friends, family and a few guests. The road crew and support staff had asked that their get-together be in the early afternoon so they could enjoy themselves and not have to worry about interrupting their fun by having to get everything taken down and on the trucks to be taken to the storage facility the set would be in till it was shipped overseas. Lilly had asked around to see what everyone wanted to do and they’d ended up with a huge barbecue at one of the local water parks. The six of us had stopped in for a while to say thanks to everyone, then we’d had to hurry back to the arena to get ready for the show.

Our post-show party was a little less wild. The huge ballroom that occupied the entire third floor of the hotel we were staying in had been transformed into an autumn wonderland with fairy lights strung through the potted trees and greenery, rich fabrics everywhere in shades of russet, brown, bronze, gold and green, and the two huge chandeliers that hung over the dance floor were twinkling with tiny gold ribbons to set off the crystal prisms that sent rainbows everywhere when they moved in the light breeze that flowed through the room. Although I’d liked the idea of the picnic, the sneak peek I took at the ballroom as I made my way up to the room I shared with Lilly changed my mind. I was looking forward to dressing up a little—but then again, when _wasn’t_ I looking for an excuse to dress up?

I met Schneider on his way to the elevators; he still had a touch of his black eyes but they were invisible underneath the concealer he’d put on. My black eye was gone, thankfully, but many of the bruised spots on my behind from him walloping me with his quarter staff were going to take somewhat longer to heal. As we stepped into the elevator, he turned to me and said, “Ready for some down time?”

“You bet. Even though I’m going be busy helping Lilly get moved in it’s still gonna be nice not having to get up at the crack of dawn to climb onto a bus or plane. Or share a dressing room with the likes of you,” I teased, poking Schneider in the arm. He laughed and said, “You’ll miss me. I’ll bet you anything you’ll be on the phone to me within a week talking about everything and nothing.”

“As if. You might get roped into helping me move furniture,” I said, leaning against the back wall of the elevator to let a small crowd of people get on. They shuffled and moved about, jostling Schneider and I until he was standing behind me, plastered against the wall. As the elevator began moving upwards, it hit a bumpy spot which threw me off balance. Before I could catch myself, I’d landed right against Schneider, pressing my backside into his crotch. He bit back a gasp; both of us immediately grew hard---and embarrassed. I couldn’t move and neither could he, so he rested his hands on my shoulders and I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets.

_**::Ah...sorry::** _

_**::Something you’re not telling me Schneider?::** _

_**::Hey, you’re sporting wood too, Reesh!::** _

_**::I am not!::** _

_**::Oh bullshit, you are too! Even if we weren’t linked I could tell. The back of your neck is redder than a stop sign and you’re starting to sweat::** _

Oh, I was in trouble. I’d never admit it to anyone but yeah, I still had some leftover feelings for our drummer. Never sure if he still felt the same way, I’d stuffed them into a box in the back of my heart and locked them away----or so I’d thought. Now, the feeling of Schneider’s warm breath on the back of my neck, his hardness pressing against my behind and the way his hands were trembling dragged all those emotions out of storage and back to cause trouble. The quickest way to break up a band was get involved with someone who’s in it with you and I was not going to do anything to jeopardize Rammstein, even after well over twenty years of us being together.

But oh, those memories of us doing everything but screwing...they were wonderful. Perfect masturbatory fodder, sure, but I missed the closeness we’d had. I’d missed waking up with someone after a long, wild night of debauchery, someone who’d simply hold me and keep me warm and safe. Someone who’d talk me down from horrible drug trips, someone who’d wake me up from a terrible nightmare and let me cry myself back to sleep and never say a word. I loved Lilly with all my heart but I had to be honest with myself----I still wanted Schneider.

Thankfully the group of people crowded on the elevator with us got off two floors up, leaving just the two of us standing and staring at the floor. I could smell the pheremones pouring off Schneider like rainwater; the scent of a sun-warmed meadow full of spring flowers underlaid with a wild, dusky scent that put a shiver up my spine. I begged the elevator to move faster, else I was going to lose my mind and pounce on Schneider right then and there. Peering out of the corner of my eye, I could see his hands shaking ever so slightly, the tips of his ears shading from pale pink to scarlet. Before I could stop him, Schneider was pressing me into the wall and kissing me slow, deep and hard. All I could do was respond, burying my hands in his curls and kissing him back. When we pulled apart, I don’t know what was more intense, the need to go crawling on my knees to beg Lilly’s forgiveness or drag Schneider to bed and fuck him senseless.

“Oh _Gott_ , I shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered, blue-green eyes wide and terrified. “I’m so sorry Reesh, I shouldn’t have...”

I couldn’t speak. I knew if I opened my mouth I’d blurt out something I didn’t want to admit and there would go my band and my lover. The elevator doors opened with a cheery “ding” and I all but ran out and down the hall to fumble my keycard in the door in hopes I’d escape seeing Schneider’s sad, guilty expression. I was lucky that Lilly was out running a few last minute errands; I tore my clothes off and jumped into the shower, turning the cold water on full blast and standing under it till I swore. I was toweling myself off when I heard her call my name and I said, “I’m in here lovey. Got everything you were looking for?”

Lilly opened the bathroom door, her face pale and eyes wide. “Reesh, have you seen Schneider? He’s locked down his end of the link and won’t answer his door. What’s wrong?”

All the wind went out of me and I had to sit down on the floor. Lilly came running, knelt beside me, saying, “Reesh, are you okay? Honey, talk to me.”

“Lilly, there’s something we need to talk about and it’s about Schneider,” I sighed, leaning my head against her shoulder. I felt her stiffen, then she put her arms around me. “Are you two still fighting?”

“No, but I wish we were. It’s...Lilly, Schneider still has feelings for me. And I…I still have feelings for him. We were on the elevator, a bunch of people got on and we got stuck in the back. I lost my balance when the elevator hit a bump and got squished into his lap. And...he kissed me. And I kissed him back.”

“Oh.”

Bracing myself for a slap, a kick to the balls and our soul-deep link snapping, I held my breath and closed my eyes. I was going to lose not only my heart’s dearest love but one of my best friends too.

“Richard? It’s okay. Honestly,” Lilly said, kissing my neck. “I love you but I don’t have any problems with you and Schneider being together. I’d rather it be him or someone else in the band than some random person you just met.”

“What? Are you...Lilly, you’re not kidding, right? You...you wouldn’t have any trouble with me and Schneider?” I asked, my head beginning to spin with emotion.

“Not a bit. As long as you two don’t go outside your relationship with each other, I don’t have a problem. I told you when it comes to relationships I’m not exactly traditional,” Lilly said. “But how does he feel about you and I?”

_**::I want ...I'd like to be with you too, Lilly::** _

_**::Schneider? Why’d you shut us out?::**_ Lilly said. _**::I never knew you felt that way about me::**_

_**::I have for awhile::**_ he replied. _**::I hate myself for it too. You and Reesh are so good together and I shouldn’t feel this way but I do and Lilly...please make it stop. Make me not want to have you both::**_

“Richard. Go get him and bring him back here,” Lilly said urgently, shoving me to my feet. I’d gotten the same feeling through the link, that tsunami of shame, blind rage and suicidal pain I’d never felt coming from Schneider but from myself. I knew if I didn’t get to him in time, he’d do something horrible and that would be the end of us all. Stopping only long enough to pull my jeans on and fumbling for the master keycard that Paul had somehow managed to create from a spare keycard, I hit the door running.

Schneider’s room was only four doors away but it felt like four hundred miles. I got his door open without anyone seeing me and slipped inside, throwing open every sense I had to locate him. It didn’t take long; Schneider was curled up on his bed, face buried in his pillow and unmoving. As I walked over to shake him, I saw something move in the dark corner. Startled, I stopped and stared into the dimness, and with a shock, saw the tiny writing table that had his laptop and backpack on it floating about six inches from the ground.

“Reesh?” came Schneider’s sad, quiet voice.

“Yeah, it’s me Chris. I’m here, it’s okay,” I said softly, carefully making my way to his side and sitting down gently as not to startle him. “I didn’t know you were a teek.”

“A what?”

“Telekinetic. No wonder you don’t drop your drumsticks anymore when you toss ‘em up in the air. You’re a teek,” I said, hoping that he wouldn’t freak out and either throw the desk at me or drop it and cause his laptop to be broken on impact. Schneider raised his head, looked over at the desk and blinked.  “That’s new. I didn’t know I could do that.”

“Are you doing it on purpose?” I asked, suddenly fascinated by Schneider’s new skill and forgetting why I was there in the first place.

“I don’t think so. Never noticed that I could to tell you the truth,” he replied, sitting up and going over to the table. He gave it a gentle poke, then laid his hand on the top and it slowly settled back to the floor.

“Can you raise it back up?”

“Dunno. Let me try,” he said in a distracted, hoarse voice. He took a deep breath and we watched as the table rose up six inches and stayed there. He looked over his shoulder at me, saying, “I think that’s all I can do at the moment; I’m starting to get a headache.”

“Yeah, I think that’s as far as you need to go,” I replied, watching the table settle back down. Schneider staggered back to the bed and flopped down, closing his eyes and wincing at the dim light coming from the half-closed curtains. “Great. That’s all I need. Something new to learn how to deal with on top of all this other shit.”

“If it’ll make you feel better, Lilly sent me over to get you,” I said softly, reaching over to stroke his forehead but Schneider said nothing.

“Look. We have to get this settled between the three of us, you have a headache that Lilly needs to look at and you need to tell her about being a telekinetic. Come back to our room and we’ll get this straightened out,” I prodded.

“Can’t we pretend nothing happened?”

“No. And I won’t let you.”

“Oh, all right,” Schneider grunted, slowly getting to his feet. I waited for him to pull his shoes on before peeking out the door to make sure the hallway was deserted. Once we were back in mine and Lilly’s room, I guided him to sit on the spare bed then went to pull the curtains closed completely so the bright sunshine wouldn't cause Schneider’s headache to turn into a nightmare. Lilly stood up from where she was sitting on the coffee table and said, “Hey sweetheart. Do you want something for the headache?”

“Yeah,” Schneider sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. “I swear my head is going to explode if I do more than breathe.” Handing him a pair of her “special” pain pills and a glass of water, Lilly said, “You’ve started to develop a new talent and I'll bet you tried to use it and strained yourself.”

“According to Reesh, I’ve discovered how to move things without touching them,” Schneider replied after he’d taken the pain medicine. “I guess I was making the bedside table float in the air when he came in. I could make it rise up but only for a few seconds before my head started to hurt.”

“That’s how I’ve felt the last time anything new showed itself,” Lilly said. “That mental fireball thing I can do now? I thought I was going to cut my head off to make the headache stop. You shouldn’t have another headache if you try to move things without touching them again. It’s like starting to exercise and using muscles you’re not used to moving. If you do get another migraine, let me know.”

The three of us sat quietly for a few moments to let the pain medicine take effect so Schneider wouldn’t be contemplating a beheading to make it stop. He finally opened his eyes and said softly, “I don’t want to be in...lust...with you both. It’s not right that I’ve got a thing for you too, Lilly. You and Reesh...”

“Shh, stop it,” Lilly said softly, reaching over to put her hands on his face. “The heart feels what it does. I didn’t know you had feelings for me. Hell, I’ve never had more than one guy interested in me, two at one time is kinda awesome!”

Startled by Lilly’s comment, I tipped my head off to the side and asked, “So you honestly don’t have a problem with Schneider and me?”

“No. But do you have a problem if I decided that I wanted to share him with you? This can get sticky and complicated if one of us decides to be less than adult about what’s going on,” she replied.

I took a moment to think about what we three might be getting ourselves into. The thought of sharing my Lilly-girl with anyone else didn’t bother me as badly as it might have at one time. That it was Schneider, someone I’d known forever both as friends and briefly sort-of-lovers might have had something to do with it. Even if we were all on one page when it came to the ins and outs of a polyamourous relationship, there was the rest of the world to consider. What would my daughter think of me? What would my mom, Schneider’s parents and sibling think? Hell, what would Ollie, Flake, Paul and Till think?

Schneider wobbled to his feet and sat down on my right while Lilly sat down on my left. I reached my hands out to them and said, “I want to try to make this work. And if it doesn’t, we’ll be as grown up as we can about it.”

Lilly squeezed my hand, gently, saying, “I think we’ll do just fine. We need to take things as slow as possible, maybe keep this inside the band and a few other people at first. The press overseas might be a smidgen nicer than the American press but only so far. And the fans will either accept this and get over it, or fuck off.”

Schneider leaned into my shoulder with a stifled hiss of pain. “If you’re willing, Reesh, Lilly, then so am I. Can I crash here for a half an hour? My head still hurts if I move around too much.”

Without words, we rearranged ourselves on the bed, Schneider in the middle with his head pillowed on my shoulder on one side and Lilly shoring him up from behind. I set the timer on my phone for a half hour and feeling happier and more content than I had in days, drifted off to sleep, warm, secure and at peace.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

I chased Richard and Ollie out of our hotel room, telling them that I needed a bit of peace and quiet before we went down to the party. They went with some protest, but in the end I had the room to myself. Richard was halfway dressed save for his boots and jacket; I’d shoved them into his arms, saying, “Go bother Till or Flake for a few minutes, okay? I’ll meet you all downstairs in twenty minutes.”

“Come on Richard, Lilly’s got that look in her eyes,” Ollie said dragging my protesting heart-mate out the door. I’d told him, and only him, what I’d planned for this last evening with everyone earlier in the day, right after sound check. He’d grinned, saluted me and went to talk to his tech. If anyone could keep a secret, it was Ollie.

Once I was sure of my privacy, I unzipped a ‘hidden’ side compartment in my larger suitcase. It was underneath a false bottom and I’d found it very handy to store what I’d bought several months back when Khira Li and Nele had been over to visit and we’d gone shopping. Carefully extracting the silky garment bag and a couple other smaller bags, I pulled the clothes out of them and hung everything up to get a good look at what I was planning to wear. I’d had the wardrobe crew iron out the few wrinkles my outfit had managed to get despite it hanging up in a rarely-used part of one of the wardrobe trunks, and had put all of the outfit on earlier that day to make sure the hems were straight and I had all the bits and bobs that went under it in place. With a happy sigh, I stripped out of my jeans and shirt, pulled my hair up and out of the way, and went to work. Makeup, putting my hair into something less chaotic looking and a final spritz of perfume took less than ten minutes. I put my ID, my cell phone and a few other things in my favorite clutch purse that looked like a large Faberge egg on a thin, delicate silver chain, and took one last look in the mirror hanging from the bathroom door.

“Showtime, I think,” I murmured, then left the room in a cloud of hairspray and spice-and-citrus perfume.

The ballroom our final post-show party was set up in was on a level you needed a key card to get into. As I was running my card through the reader, a sudden flash of heat/cold/anger/pain went through me top to toe. I staggered back against the wall, forcing my knees to lock and spine to stay straight. The flare was gone as quickly as it had come on and for a moment, I thought I’d been imagining things. That it was so much like the flare I’d aimed at Richard a few days earlier told me nope, it had been a real event.

_**::Lilly! Are you okay? Did you feel that too?::** _

_**::That wasn’t one of you, was it Flake?::** _

_**::Thankfully not. It came from someone in the building but nowhere near us. I tried following the remains of whatever that was and it’s definitely coming from a person in the building. A guy, as far as I could sense before everything went dead. Bastard!::**_ Flake snapped.

_**::Is everyone okay?::** _

_**:For the most part. Ollie’s kind of nauseated as he gave me a boost to track down what I could and I’m a little dizzy but nothing major. I’ll tell you something interesting, some of the normals were affected too::** _

_**::What? You’re kidding!::**_ I said.

_**::Nope. I saw a handful of people suddenly look like they’d been smacked in the face the second the rest of us felt that flare. It only lasted a few heartbeats but I noticed it. Whoever’s the cause of that is more than likely the same person who’s made us all edgy and prodded Richard into fighting with Schneider::** _

_**::Wonderful. Just what we need. Damn it, for once I’d like to be able to enjoy myself without worrying there’s some idiot out there messing with us!::**_ I snapped.

_**::I think we’re okay. From the way that little blast faded out so quickly, the person that did it is well and gone by now. They’d better hope we never track them down::** _

“Agreed,” I said to myself as I walked down the short hallway to the ballroom. I stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, center myself and put the events of the day out of my mind. Squaring my shoulders, I pulled one of the heavy doors open and stepped into the room.

It took me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the lower lights in the room and when they did, I smiled happily. The rosy light coming from the crystal drops that dripped from the two chandeliers made everything and everyone glow just slightly, and where the light was focused by the prisms, rainbows covered the walls and ceiling. The fairy lights wrapped through the trees and greenery scattered throughout the room seemed to twinkle with a life of their own.

I didn’t have to wait long before I was spotted; Ollie strode across the room, dressed in head to toe black jacket, pants and boots, an ivory silk t-shirt setting off his light tan and freshly trimmed beard. He leaned down to hug me, carefully, saying, “I don’t want to wrinkle your outfit too much. You look lovely.”

“Thanks, Ollie. And you look pretty good yourself. Where’s everyone?” I asked, following him across the shiny, dark oak floor, my heels tapping quietly underneath the gentle susurrus of conversations. He collected two glasses of champagne for us, then said, “Nele, Khira Li and Paul’s son made it. Arielle couldn’t come and she’s not at all happy about it but she said she was so overwhelmed at work she just couldn’t. A couple of my cousins who live in Winnepeg are here; you’ve got to meet them. You think I’m tall? Heh, they make me look like I’m no bigger than you! Oh, and Flake’s daughter Anne is here somewhere, I think she’s catching her father up on what she’s been doing. Emu’s on his way over, and there’s a few people from management and the record label around.”

“Where’s Richard?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t seen me arrive. Ollie smiled, pointed over his shoulder and said, “Look behind me.”

It was as if the whole world faded away, leaving the two of us staring at each other. Ollie moved out of Richard’s way, hiding a smile behind a hand. I walked towards Richard slowly, unsteady on my feet thanks to not being used to wearing high-heeled shoes, and from the look in his dark eyes. We stopped a hair’s breath away from each other; Richard whispered in a soft, hoarse voice, “Oh my God, Lilly. You look...you look so beautiful.”

“You think so?” I asked, awkwardly holding my arms out to the sides to show my outfit off. I wasn’t used to wearing a dress, and not only was this one made of heavy black silk with an iridescent sheen to the fabric, it was also cut very low in the back to show off most of the tattoo on my back and fit me like a second skin. I’d hesitated over wearing a sleeveless dress but Nele had talked me into it, saying that I needed to show myself off after weeks of wearing jeans, t-shirts and the occasional sweater. I’d taken all of my jewelry out except for the barbell in my scaffolding piercing and had the larger of the two pairs of hoops Richard had gotten for me in, with a pair of black, freshwater pearl studs in the holes above them. No other jewelry, I wanted my dress and hair to stand out and even a simple necklace would have been too much. I’d also managed to keep a coat of nail polish on for more than a day, and had painted over my black claws (trimmed down to a safe length with nippers like you’d use on dogs with very, very heavy nails) with a bright red polish that sparkled with minute bits of silver glitter. Black, sheer stockings with a seam up the back were soft and light on my legs, and the high heels made of black velveteen material I’d found a couple days ago on a quick shopping spree looked dangerously tall but had a hidden platform inside and were almost as comfy as my sneakers.

“Who are you and where did you put our doctor?” Till said as he followed his daughter and Khira Li over to where I stood. They both cheered and caught me in a hug, leaving Till to poke Richard in the shoulder and tease him about standing flat footed with his mouth hanging open enough to catch bugs. He closed his mouth with a snap but said not a word, not even when Khira Li said, “I can’t believe you’re not saying a word, _Vati_.”

“Don’t tease him so much,” Nele replied. “You’ve never seen Lilly in a dress, _Onkle_ Richard?”

“Duh...no. Never.”

Schneider, Paul and his son Emil (father and son dressed alike in black pants, sweaters, boots and touches of silver jewelry here and there) saved my poor darling from further embarrassment by crowding around me for hugs and introductions. Emil was every inch his father’s son, from his looks clear down to his sunny disposition and sense of humor. After introducing himself (and charming me from the start just like his father), he excused himself so he could greet Nele and Khira Li. They had all but grown up together and from their excited voices, hadn’t been able to talk in person for quite a while. Save for Schneider and Richard, the rest excused themselves, leaving the three of us alone. Like Ollie, Richard and Schneider were both wearing black pants, boots and jackets; Schneider had a grey silky-looking button up under his jacket as did Richard, who’d gone with a shirt in a dark blue just this side of black. Schneider’s hair was fluffy and slightly fuzzy from being washed and hastily towel-dried, and Richard was sporting his usual spiky mane, somewhat longer than he’d worn it in a long time. Shyly, I fixed my gaze on the floor and said softly, “You both look gorgeous.”

“Thank you lovey,” Schneider replied just as softly. Richard leaned in and kissed the back of my neck, breathing. “You have no idea how beautiful you are and how much I’d rather have you in bed making you scream at the moment,” in my ear. He fixed Schneider with a heated glance, purring, “And the same goes for you.”

Schneider flushed and hid his face behind his hands. “I can’t take you anywhere! You pull a trick like that again and the whole world’s gonna know we’ve got a thing for each other!” he hissed.

“Boys, boys. Behave,” I said, smacking Richard lightly on the behind right where I knew the sorest of his bruises was. He jumped away with a strangled “Ouch! Woman, that hurt!”

“And I meant for it to hurt,” I said, taking his arm and pulling him back to me. I caught Schneider’s arm and towing them along, made my way to one of the tables under the larger of the two chandeliers. Flake and his daughter Anne were already there and stood to greet the three of us. Flake had chosen all black as well, his soft green button down shirt a perfect match for Anne’s simple sheath dress. She smiled at me and held her hand out, saying, “I’m Anne Lorenz. Dad’s told me about you and it’s nice to meet you at last.”

“I’m glad to meet you too, Anne,” I replied, letting Flake pull out my chair and settle me in it before Richard or Schneider could argue over who would do it. Schneider got Anne settled (and stuck his tongue out at Richard behind his back) and once we were all seated, Flake said, “I don’t think we’ve ever had an end of tour party this nice. Thank you for planning it out and everything.”

“You’re welcome! I wasn’t the only one doing the work, I roped in some of the office staff and a couple of the local security people,” I replied, handing my empty glass to one of the wait staff that breezed by. Since the show ended late in the evening, it had been decided to keep to as light a menu as possible (with lots of goodies for the vegetarians and vegans), only a few alcohol choices and assorted desserts (more than enough for those of us with gigantic sweet tooths).

I’d sneaked a couple of the petit fours when I’d passed by the room earlier that day and was hoping to get a couple more of the variety I’d chosen before Paul and Till found them. They were tiny strawberry and devil’s food layer cakes topped with powdered sugar, and they had been as light on the tongue as they were full of flavor. At one of the tour stops, the caterers had made a devil’s food cake covered in freshly-made strawberry syrup and topped with slices of strawberry alternated with thin curls of dark chocolate, and the three of us nearly came to playing “Rock, Paper and Scissors” to determine who would get the last piece. We’d ended up splitting the small slice between us but only after five rounds coming to a draw. Richard, Schneider and Flake had laughed themselves sick while Ollie photographed the whole event and I was sure those pictures would come back to haunt me.

As the room continued to fill up, I took the chance to drop my shields just a touch to see if anyone might be our culprit from earlier in the evening. Finding nothing, I put them back up just in time to hear Emu call my name. He’d been late in arriving due to overseeing so much back at the arena, but he’d promised to be at the party long enough to say hi before needing to get to bed before the crack of dawn. He’d changed into his usual post-show uniform of black pants and a dull red button down shirt, but had caged a tie from someone. He looked quite handsome and I said as much when he came within earshot.

“Who are you and where’s our doctor? Should I be looking for a pod in the back of the building?” he teased. I snort-laughed at him and gestured for him to sit down. He pulled a chair away from one of the nearby tables and groaned softly as he lowered himself into its padded softness. “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage,” he said.

“I want to thank you for giving me a chance with this job,” I said. “Not too many people would trust their employers to someone they found through a friend of a friend’s recommendation.”

“You have Richard’s seal of approval as well as the rest of the band. You somehow managed to keep them all happy, healthy and as out of trouble as any person can do. I’m just sorry you won’t be with us on the next leg of the tour.”

“I tried not to kill them on alternating Fridays,” I dead-panned, raising an eyebrow to show Emu I was kidding. “I’m sure whoever takes care of the medical stuff will do a good job.”

“I hope so. Well, I hate to run but I’ve got some last-minute business to get to. I’ll say hello to the boys on the way out. I would have been over here faster but the record company folks had me stuck in a corner for a half hour asking about the tour.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” I said, giving him one last goodbye hug. “And don’t forget to grab some of the goodies on your way out. No reason you shouldn’t have a snack or three before you get back to work!”

With a wave, Emu vanished into the crowd. I started to sit back down when Nele popped out of nowhere, with Khira Li hot on her heels. They’d picked out dresses similar to mine without the low cut backs, and Nele’s dress had sheer sleeves. Her dress was a brilliant scarlet while Khira Li’s was a shimmering gold, almost bronze in the light. “Come on Lilly, we’d better go get what we want to eat before the men do!” she laughed, dragging me to my feet.

The rest of the evening was a blur; thankfully there were several people taking pictures so I could see what I missed. I hadn’t danced in a long time but by the end of the evening I’d danced with everyone in the band and Emil twice, much to his father’s amusement. Richard had pretended to be jealous of that and when Schneider cut in on Richard and I during one dance but it was all for show. Ollie’s cousins were a hoot; all three of them at least four inches taller than he was. I hadn’t felt so at ease with people in a long time and it was a nice feeling. I had such a wonderful time and hated when the evening drew to a close.

By the time the big grandfather clock in the far end of the ballroom chimed two in the morning, we were all ready to get out of our finery and into comfy clothes for sleep. Everyone but Richard and Schneider had cleared out a half hour or so earlier, leaving the three of us sitting underneath one of the fairy-light wrapped trees. I had my shoes off and my feet up in Richard’s lap while Schneider leaned against my back, idly playing with a length of pink, satin ribbon that had been tied around one of the cake plates.

“Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” I sighed, pulling my hair out of its clip and pins. “I’m so glad I don’t have to clean up this mess.”

Richard laughed softly and began rubbing my toes. “I’m about done myself. I swear if I look at one more petit four, I’m gonna pop.”

Schneider yawned hugely and moved away from me so he could tie my hair back with his piece of ribbon. “I’m two seconds from falling asleep. Come on kids, let’s clear out while we’re still mobile.” Arm in arm, we three walked out of the ballroom and made our way upstairs. Schneider quickly kissed the two of us goodnight and slipped into his room as silent as a cat. I took off my makeup while Richard double checked all of our trip information, and as soon as he logged out of his laptop, we crawled into bed and were asleep in moments.

A thump against the bedroom door woke me up very early the next morning. I sat up, groggily, and saw Richard shoving a good-sized box across the floor with his foot. “This was at the door when I got up to take a pee,” he said. I slid out of bed and knelt down next to the box, carefully examining it with all my senses. There was an envelope taped to the top of the box addressed to me. There was nothing else written on the envelope nor on the box itself, so giving Richard a confused look, I opened the envelope. A piece of paper with the hotel’s logo fell out, and printed on the page was a short note:

“ _Mz. Bailey:_

_These files and hard drives are yours. Keep them safe; they should have been given back to you sooner._

_Good luck in your new endeavors.”_

“Did you see who left this?” I asked, a cold sweat breaking out on my skin.

Richard shook his head. “Nope. I heard something or someone moving around outside the door and when I looked, there was no one in the hallway. Are those the files that vanished out of your old office?”

“And my two hard drives. Whoever had them has either wiped the information off or...” I said, pulling one of the thick file folders out of the box. I flipped through the pages quickly and found nothing missing, and even without plugging the hard drives into my laptop, I knew they hadn’t been erased. I felt a chill run up my spine for a moment, thinking of all the people who could have been responsible for their disappearance and coming back to me. I tugged the rest of the folders out of the box and tucked them into the larger of my three suitcases, then stored the two hard drives in my carry on bag. Richard said nothing the whole time, just watched me with hooded, troubled eyes.

The trip to the airport was a quick and very quiet one. I was sick to my stomach from nerves; not even a handful of antacids and papaya tablets would settle it down. I tried my best to keep from shaking but couldn’t. I finally ended up curled under Till’s strong, warm arm, my hair covering my face and Flake’s lightweight jacket thrown over my shoulders.

“You’re gonna do just fine,” Paul said, gently squeezing my arm. “We’re all going on the same flights back home, so you’re not gonna be by yourself at any point.”

“I know, I know. It’s been a very long time since I was on a plane and I don’t have a good head for heights,” I mumbled. “As long as I don’t look out a window, I’ll be fine.”

“Or we can put you in a cat carrier and shove you under the seat!” Schneider teased. That made me laugh, which eased my nerves somewhat. By the time we rolled into the airport, I wasn’t nauseated any more but still shaky. The thought of being several thousand miles up was enough to make me want to cling to the ground and stay there. Short of taking a boat from the States to Europe, I didn’t have much of a choice. I took a deep, cleansing breath, squared my shoulders and followed my boys into the airport.

Going through security took several moments as there was a small gang of fans waiting to see the band off, but at last we were free to go. We had about an hour until our flight out, so I had time to sit near the windows that overlooked the airfield and think about what I was leaving behind. I’d never felt at home anywhere, I never really felt like I belonged. Now I was jumping headlong into a new life that might come crashing down around my ears, or not. All of my stuff save for some clothes and bits of things I’d need immediately were on their way to Richard’s place. Lost in thought, the hour passed quickly and before I realized it, Richard was tugging on my ponytail gently. “Come on baby girl, time to go.”

Without a second glance, I picked up my bags and walked through the gates, leaving my old life behind forever.

::::

Jason Miller watched the small group of people he’d been told to protect and observe make their way through the main Security gate. He was physically hidden behind a large potted plant and psychically hidden by the tiny gadget he held in his hands. While he was glad he hadn’t needed to kill anyone on this assignment, he’d been very close to breaking protocol and hunting down whoever had caused the huge fight between Richard and Schneider as well as the other psychic disturbances. He had an inkling that it wasn’t someone with his agency but unless he was told who it was, he knew better than to ask his superiors.

“Doing a bit of sightseeing?” a low voice came from behind him.

“Yeah, a little. I’ve got one hell of a report to write when I get back to the office, though.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Lots and lots of data. Sneaked around, got some hair samples, did a bit of this and that. I thought I was busted a couple of times but this little beauty kept me square,” Jason replied, tapping the device with a finger. “Enough here for lots and lots of research.”

“Good,” the person said, sitting down behind him. Only a very observant person would have seen the tiny metal box exchange hands, followed by an envelope made of dull grey paper. Jason didn’t look in it but slid it into his pants pocket. “Thanks. I didn’t expect a bonus.”

“Hazard pay. You’d said something about close calls, what happened?”

“The box wasn’t quite strong enough to keep me from having some leakage but when it kicked in, I was invisible. Which created problems of its own; Flake almost caught me twice and I was sure I’d been busted. And excuse my bluntness, but who else was out here? Because whoever it is, they just about ruined everything. I suppose you heard about the knock down, drag out fight Schneider and Richard had? That, and some other things kept me jumping to stay as far out of sight as possible but still keep my eye on them.”

“That person was doing work on their own, work that wasn’t sanctioned. They’ve been recalled and reprimanded,” the stranger said. “Don’t give them another thought.”

Jason began to protest but thought better of it. “So, am I to assume my part in this is done? Or does the agency need me to find a way to get into the crew for the overseas part of the tour?”

“Nope, you’re done and your work was commendable. We’ve got more projects on the burner for you, if you’d like them. There’s a raise in it for you as well as commendations for this job.”

“As much as I liked pretending to be a roadie, I think I’d be happier going back to my desk job,” Jason said as he stood and shrugged his jacket back on. “Thank you, and I’ll see you back in DC?”

“You will. Safe trip, Jason.”

 

“And to you too, sir. It’s been a pleasure.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This closes out the first part of the Changeling 'Verse stories. I'm glad for all the comments I've gotten over this since I decided to put it back up; I thank you all so much.
> 
> Part Two is on its way soon!


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